


This Is Not A Thai Food Place

by hellpenguin



Category: Black Books
Genre: M/M, Rubber Ducks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-24
Updated: 2009-02-24
Packaged: 2017-11-01 17:19:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellpenguin/pseuds/hellpenguin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bernard has something out-of-character and Manny wants to know why. This leads to a makeout.</p><p>Made for the prompt: "Bernard/Manny, rub-a-dub-dub"</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is Not A Thai Food Place

“Hey, Bernard,” Manny walked out of the back room and into the main part of the store, where a disheveled Bernard was snoring on the couch. A few customers wandered around, most of them looking confused or lost. “Bernard, I found a-”

“Excuse me?” A batty old woman cut in front of Manny, pulling politely on the sleeve of his obnoxious Hawaiian-print shirt. “Excuse me, is this the...uh, is this the Tan Wan Thai food restaurant?”

“Er, no, sorry, this is a bookstore.” Manny tried to pull away, but her claw-like shriveled old fingers dug into his arm.

“A what? Listen, dearie, I have a reservation for two at seven, for- for Elaine, and it's almost six now, and I was wondering if I could be seated early?” Manny tried again to extricate himself, but she held onto him like Bernard did with bottles of wine at noon.

“Er, we're not a restaurant. This is a bookstore. We sell books.” She gave him the suspicious crazy-eye, like he was trying to sell her magazine subscriptions on the street.

“What's that? Listen here, dearie, I may be old but I'm no dummy. I know a restaurant when I see one. Now, are you going to take my coat?” She turned her back to him and waited. And waited. “I haven't got all day, dearie, just an hour.” Slowly, Manny placed the item he had been holding onto the desk and reached up and helped her remove her jacket. He looked around cautiously before tossing her flea-ridden old black velvet coat on a willy-nilly pile of books about the weather. She looked at him again. Crazily.

“Right. Well, I'll er, just be taking you to your seat then, I guess.” He took her elbow and guided her to a stool in the cooking section. As soon as she sat down, he handed her a book on Thai food. “Your menu, madam.” And then he went back to the desk, where he picked up what looked like a rubber ducky.

On the couch, Bernard snored. The dead stub of a cigarette fell out of his mouth and onto the dirty floor. Manny walked up to him.

“Bernard, I found a rubber ducky in the back. Bernard,” he shook Bernard's shoulder. Bernard coughed, rolled over, and fell off the couch. Blinking blearily up at Manny, he pointed at the small yellow ducky in his hand.

“What.” He wheezed, “Is that?”

“That's what I was going to ask you. I found it in the back room. Under the coffee table, and inside an Argyle sock.”

“What were you doing under the coffee table? More importantly, when did we get a coffee table?” Bernard slowly sat up, slouching back against the couch. “Even more importantly, why did you wake me up?”

“Bernard, why do you have a rubber ducky? You haven't taken a bath since 1987.”

Bernard huffed. He found the butt of a cigarette that had fallen from his mouth earlier, and tucked it in his pocket. “What's it to you? It's my ducky.” He reached up and pulled the ducky from Manny's hand, tucking it into the corner of his arm. Then he got shakily to his feet and fell back onto the couch.

“But what was it doing in your sock?” Manny, for some reason, couldn't let this go. Bernard didn't have stuffed animals, so it stood to reason he didn't bestow random platitudes upon rubber bathtime toys in the shape of bright yellow rubber water fowl. Especially since he didn't bathe.

Bernard mumbled something that sounded like, “My buzzer” and “stuff a” and “'s good.” He tucked the ducky closer to his body.

Manny was about to ask why he was so attached to a child's toy when a crazy old dusty voice creaked out at him from across the room.

“Waiter, I'm ready to order!” He sighed heavily and went over to Bag lady.

“What about your other party, madam?” She gave him The Look again. “You said a party for two? For Elaine?”

“Elaine is my pomeranian. What fool would think I'd eat food with my dog in a four-star restaurant? I want the chicken curry.” Manny made a face. Pretending she was in a restaurant was one thing, but actually serving her was another thing all together.

“It'll be right out, madam.” He hoped she had the attention span of a Pomeranian and went back to Bernard.

“Who's that?” He peered at the happily humming crazy old bat in the corner.

“Stop changing the subject. Why are you so attached to a plastic duck?” Bernard narrowed his eyes. Reluctantly, he held out the duck, hands cupping it as one might cup a toad, or a particularly crumbly scone.

“It's not just a duck.” He looked at the yellow duck in his palms. Manny looked at the duck. It looked like a duck. It even had a creepy smiling face that real ducks could never pull off outside of animations.

“It looks like a duck to me, Bern.”

“Yeah, well it's not.” Manny looked at it some more. Its little blue eyes started to creep him out.

“Then what is it, exactly?” Bernard looked at him. Then he slid a glance at the customers (all...one of them, sitting in the cooking corner humming the tune to 'A Bicycle Built For Two') and looked back at Manny.

“Not here.” Then he handed the duck to Manny, stood up and wobbled over to the woman.

“Oh!” She looked up at him expectantly, “Have you brought my chicken curry?”

“No,” Bernard Black said.

“Oh,” she pouted, “I was looking forward to a curry.”

“We're out.”

“Dearie me. What would you suggest?”

“The dog. We have a Poodle special right now, extra-crispy.”

“Oh my, I thought that was a silly story they made up to scare off holiday-ers!” She got to her feet huffily, eyes wild.

“It is.” He bowed. “Also, I have Books Sauteed With Mushrooms Over An Open Bonfire? Might I recommend the Vonnegut, it has a light bitter aroma that goes well with the mushrooms.” Bernard had been walking her towards the door as he talked at her. “Actually, we do have some Chicken Curry after all.”

“Oh! I'll have that then.” She smiled up at him. He opened the door.

“So you will.” She walked outside. He shut the door behind her. He turned back to Manny, who was watching the whole exchange with his mouth partly open. “What?”

“She forgot her coat.” He pointed.

Bernard picked up the coat, opened the door, and threw it outside, shutting the door behind it. He looked back at Manny. Manny looked at the Duck-Not-Duck in his hand. Bernard walked back to him. He held out his hand. Manny gently placed the duck in it.

Bernard looked at the duck, and then up at Manny through his eyelashes. He stepped closer, as if to share a secret. Then he pressed at the duck's tail. The duck started to vibrate.

It vibrated in a little circle around Bernard's palm and started to fall off his hand, but Manny caught it. He stared at it, vibrating in his palm. Then he looked up at Bernard.

“Got it from a girl.” Bernard was staring very hard at the vibrating duck in Manny's hand.

“Fran?” Manny squinted.

“God, I hope not.” They stared at the buzzing little duck some more.

“Does it...I mean, do you...?” Manny risked a glance up at Bernard. “Do you...” he breathed, “use it?” Bernard caught him looking, and reached out for the duck.

“Sometimes,” he slurs, taking the duck from Manny's outstretched hand, thumb brushing over the side of his palm. Manny gasped, helplessly, and looked up at Bernard. Bernard flicked the tail and the duck stopped buzzing. He looked at it for a second more, then looked back at Manny. Casually, he tossed the duck over his shoulder. “Sometimes I don't need it.” Then he stumbled into Manny, stubble and all, and kissed him.

He tasted like wine and smoke and all the things he usually smelled like. Manny inhaled and licked his way into Bernard's mouth, stubble burning his lips. Somehow they found themselves on the too-small couch, Bernard on top, hands sliding under Manny's red-and-yellow hibiscus printed shirt, Manny's hands in Bernard's shaggy hair. They kissed with teeth and tongue and at least a year of want, since that day Manny accidentally got saved by Bernard by street thugs (well, okay, teenage boys).

So when Manny shifted and felt something switch on beneath his thigh and start buzzing, he didn't miss a beat. Just laughed softly into Bernard's mouth and hitched his thigh over Bernard's skinny hip. Bernard pulled away a bit, catching Manny's lip between his teeth and reaching around to close his hand over the yellow duck-shaped vibrator.

“Sometimes,” he gasped and pressed burning wine-soaked kisses across Manny's throat, “Sometimes I just like toys,” he pulled his vibrating hand between them, pressed the duck low on Manny's belly. Manny groaned and bucked. Bernard growled and scraped his teeth over Manny's adam's apple. “Rub-a-dub-dub.”


End file.
